It was that tall, dusty stack of newspapers in the corner
that caught his eye. That was back in '82 when John Hankins, owner of County NewsService, was interviewing
a local Supervisor in his office. The Supervisor mentioned how much time
his staff spent clipping articles for his files,
if they even had the time. A few weeks later, Santa Barbara County News
Clipping Service (CNCS) was launched, and the Supervisor became John's
first client.

Word
of mouth spread so rapidly that in 1989, John sold the County News Service
and hired professional readers with backgrounds in journalism and research.
This staff is adept at finding even hidden references, to complete twice-weekly
news packets sent to subscribers.

The
news clipping library has spawned a one-of-a-kind research function -
digging out the history of political campaigns, oil and water wars, court
and crime actions . . . and much more.

John
Hankins, the consumate reporter, worked for the Los Angeles Times,
Time Magazine, Oakland Tribune, Santa Barbara News-Press and various
weeklies and UCSB's interlibrary loan and research division. He currently
writes news features for magazines and edits a bi-monthly newspaper.

Santa
Barbara County News Clipping Service offers both news
research for Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties and
news clipping subscriptions; see Packets for more
information.